Novel Imaging Biomarkers to Assess Oncologic Treatment–Related Changes

Abstract

Cancer therapeutics cause various treatment-related changes that may impact patient follow-up and disease monitoring. Although atypical responses such as pseudoprogression may be misinterpreted as treatment nonresponse, other changes, such as hyperprogressive disease seen with immunotherapy, must be recognized early for timely management. Radiation necrosis in the brain is a known response to radiotherapy and must be distinguished from local tumor recurrence. Radiotherapy can also cause adverse effects such as pneumonitis and local tissue toxicity. Systemic therapies, like chemotherapy and targeted therapies, are known to cause long-term cardiovascular effects. Thus, there is a need for robust biomarkers to identify, distinguish, and predict cancer treatment–related changes. Radiomics, which refers to the high-throughput extraction of subvisual features from radiologic images, has been widely explored for disease classification, risk stratification, and treatment-response prediction. Lately, there has been much interest in investigating the role of radiomics to assess oncologic treatment–related changes. We review the utility and various applications of radiomics in identifying and distinguishing atypical responses to treatments, as well as in predicting adverse effects. Although artificial intelligence tools show promise, several challenges—including multi-institutional clinical validation, deployment in health care settings, and artificial-intelligence bias—must be addressed for seamless clinical translation of these tools.